CHAPTER XXII

PAUL, BEING SENT PRISONER FROM JUDEA TO ROME, AFTER HIS DEFENCE, WAS ABSOLVED FROM ALL CRIME

FESTUS was sent by Nero as successor to Felix. Under him, Paul, after having pleaded his cause, was sent a prisoner to Rome. But Aristarchus was his companion, whom he also somewhere in his epistles calls his fellow-prisoner; and here Luke, that wrote the Acts of the Apostles, after showing that Paul passed two whole years at Rome as a prisoner at large, and that he preached the gospel without restraint, brings his history to a close. After pleading his cause, he is said to have been sent again upon the ministry of preaching, and after a second visit to the city, that he finished his life with martyrdom. Whilst he was a prisoner, he wrote his second epistle to Timothy, in which he both mentions his first defence and his impending death. Hear, on these points, his own testimony respecting himself. “In my former defence no one was present with me, but all deserted me. May it not be laid to their charge. But the Lord was with me, and strengthened me, that through me the preaching of the gospel might be fulfilled, and all the nations might hear it. And I was rescued out of the lion’s mouth.” He plainly intimates in these words, “On the former occasion he was rescued from the lion’s mouth, that the preaching of the gospel might be accomplished,” that it was Nero to which he referred by this expression, as is probable on account of his cruelty. Therefore he did not subsequently subjoin any such expression as, “he will rescue me from the lion’s mouth,” for he saw in spirit how near his approaching death was. Hence, after the expression, “and I was rescued from the lion’s mouth,” this also, “the Lord will rescue me from every evil work, and will save me unto his heavenly kingdom,” indicating the martyrdom that he would soon suffer; which he more clearly expresses in the same epistle, “for I am already poured out, and the time of my departure is at hand.” And indeed, in this second epistle to Timothy, he shows that Luke alone was with him when he wrote, but at his former defence not even he. Whence, it is probable, that Luke wrote his Acts of the Apostles about that time, continuing his history down to the time that he was with Paul. Thus much we have said, to show that the martyrdom of the apostle did not take place at that period of his stay at Rome when Luke wrote his history. It is indeed probable, that as Nero was more disposed to mildness in the beginning, the defence of the apostle’s doctrine would by him be more easily received; but as he advanced to such criminal excesses as to disregard all right, the apostles also, with others, experienced the effects of the measures pursued against them.